Egypt's Dangerous Precedent

First in Tunisia, and now in Egypt, authoritarian rulers have made unprecedented efforts to silence calls for freedom.

In the troubled lands of the Middle East, we are witnessing the historic struggle of oppressed peoples using new communication tools as powerful weapons against their governments, and a massive and unprecedented attempt by those governments to neutralize those weapons and continue their authoritarian rule.

In Tunisia, we just witnessed the downfall of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, who had ruled with an iron fist since 1987, along with a deeply corrupt ruling elite and a police state that suppressed political rights. The revolution that brought an end to his rule was triggered by a desperate young man named Mohamed Bouazizi, who was so oppressed by corrupt officials he felt his only recourse was to set fire to himself. The fire he lit was not only physical in nature, but also metaphorical, and it spread through the people of Tunisia via the internet and mobile phones. These modern technological devices proved to be more than just instruments of communication – they were weapons against oppression, enabling the people of Tunisia call each other to the streets and overthrow their president.

Seventy-eight people died during the “Jasmine Revolution,” but the communication networks that had become the people’s powerful new weapons against oppression remained substantially intact. There is hope that ultimately, the use of these weapons will result in a far more liberated and democratic Tunisia in the coming days and months.

However, by the time the fires of revolution spread to Egypt – which has been ruled for the past three decades by President Hosni Mubarak and his iron-fisted elite, supported by a much-feared security and police establishment – its government had learned a lesson. With word of planned Jan. 28 protests spreading on Facebook and Twitter, the Egyptian government began a major assault on its people’s communication networks, the first of its kind in the 21st century. Officials blocked the country’s three major cell-phone networks and even disrupted the landline systems – and just before midnight on Jan. 27, internet routes into Egyptian networks were cut from the global routing framework, making all URLs unreachable. Egyptian domain-name servers were also shut down, completing the Egyptians’ isolation by making communication virtually impossible.

The Egyptian people may still be able to use street communication and the remaining landlines to overcome this suppression and succeed in their attempts to force real democratic reforms now that the army has stated that they will not use force against the thousands of protesters..

One of the most developed countries in the Middle East and home to nearly 85 million, Egypt has great international significance, meaning the government’s infringement on freedom of expression and political activity is of monumental concern not only to its own people but also to the rest of the world. Egypt could be setting a very troublesome precedent, which other authoritarian governments will be studying closely.

President Obama was the first to recognize the danger of the almost total suppression of the Egyptian people’s communication. In a phone call to Mubarak, Obama urged him to restore internet access and remove the restrictions on mobile phones. Obama warned Mubarak that these actions were necessary if he wanted to demonstrate respect for the universal rights of the people of Egypt, including the right to peaceful assembly, the right to association, the right to free speech, and the right to determine their own destiny.

Prime Minister Harper must take time out from orchestrating infantile attack ads against the leader of the Opposition and instead show a semblance of statesmanship by joining Obama in admonishing the Egyptian government for shutting down its people’s means of communication at this critical time. And all world leaders must recognize that beyond the immediate outcome of the turmoil in countries of the Middle East – not only Tunisia and Egypt but also Yemen, Jordan, and Lebanon – there is another potential consequence: that the precedent set by Egypt will become standard practice for oppressive governments across the globe.